ANIMAL ARCHIVES

Digital Museum Project of Human-Animal Relationships (mostly 19th-century English and American)

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Vegetarian Drunkards

From 10/13/1888 issue of The Spectator: the newspaper’s editor ridicules a letter from an Indian reader who challenged the newspaper’s generalizing comment about “vegetarian drunkards” in India.

(Currently researching the production of India’s national identity via the tiger. Ran across this.)

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CFP:  Animals, Animality, and National Identity (ACLA 3/17-3/20/2016; due 9/23/15)

This seminar will explore how national identities have been forged through the manipulation and deployment of animals and animality. How have animals, and ideas associated with such animals, been used to construct imagined communities? How have these constructions helped to strengthen or weaken national borders? How have assertions of imagined community, as expressed via relations with animals, overlapped with racial/ethnic attitudes?

In naming both animals and animality, I allude to the intersection of material practices with the representational appropriation of ideas and values of certain animals, which together forged the affective ties of groups or nations. The seminar also hopes to pursue issues surrounding the internal production of national identities by citizens and residents, as well as tensions arising when “outsiders” attempt to challenge, co-opt, or otherwise influence these identities.

Interdisciplinary studies of literature, film, and culture are welcome.

Potential topics include:

- The history of domestication

- Colonial and postcolonial encounters

- “Humane” campaigns against “inhumane” Others

- Distinctions between domestic, wild, and exotic animals

- Distinctions between edible and inedible animals

- Meat-eaters vs. vegetarians

- National dishes (e.g. Icelandic hakarl, Japanese sushi, English roast beef, Jamaican Ackee, Austrian wiener schnitzel, Hungarian Goulash, Mexican taco)

- Cultural dishes that, due to migration and diasporas, now transcend national boundaries

- International traffic in animal products

- Taboo animals

- Zoos, menageries, and circuses

- Companion animals

- Breeding (e.g., dogs, cats, cows, sheep)

- Indigenous vs. introduced species

- “Alien,” “invasive,” and “nuisance” animals

- Species extermination (e.g. wolves, bison) and intersections with racial/ethnic cleansing in the name of the nation (e.g. Native Americans)

- Cultural histories of specific animals chosen to represent nations/peoples, such as the American bald eagle, the English bulldog, the French rooster, the Russian bear, the German eagle, the Chinese dragon, the Indian tiger, the Japanese crane, the Costa Rican quetzal, the Senegal lion, the Ivory Coast elephant, the Australian kangaroo, the New Zealand kiwi

- Identities forged through conceptions of animal-animal relationships, such as the Mexican flag’s depiction of an eagle eating a snake

- Tensions between the internal and external construction of animalizing/animalized identities (e.g. “Frenchies” as frogs)

Please see the CFP on the American Comparative Literature Association’s website here: http://www.acla.org/seminar/animals-animality-and-national-identity

Abstracts for papers should be submitted between September 1-23, 2015 through ACLA’s website. Please indicate interest in this panel during your submission. Full panels will be submitted to the American Comparative Literature Association for acceptance into the final program.

ACLA’s 2016 Annual Meeting will take place at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 17-20, 2016.

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Simple Taxonomies, 1822

This children’s reader encapsulates a simple, anthropocentric method of organizing life on earth: count the legs.

Humans = men, women, boys, girls

Beasts = four legs

Birds = two wings, two legs

Reptiles = crawl [deficient legs]

Insects = creeping and flying [little to no legs]

And that’s all you needed to know to be well on the road to “the temple of fame” (see frontispiece).

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (part 9: More than Cats and Dogs)

Among the tens of thousands of dog and cat remains, Hartsdale is also the final resting place of birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, and more. Apparently there is also a horse and a lion. (I’ve been there three times and have yet to find the lion’s memorial.)

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (part 8: Together Forever, On Earth as We Are in Heaven)

  In 2011, the State of New York decided to ban the burial of human cremains in pet cemeteries, but this ban was lifted this past August. It was a grudging retraction: pet cemeteries are still forbidden from advertising the possibility and from charging a fee (presumably as further disincentive), and must inform prospective purchasers that cremains (in the text of the NYS Register, “cremains” is defined as only human cremated remains) buried in pet cemeteries are not entitled to the same protections as those buried in designated human cemeteries (such as protection from being moved into a mass burial lot in the case of nonpayment, for example).  

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (part 7: All Dogs Go to Heaven)

Many insist that these beloved animals indeed have souls, an afterlife, where the bereaved humans can reconnect with their lost loved ones. I can feel the pain behind the fervent wish to be reunited, to wish that forever is not forever.

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (part 6: Those Left Behind)

And some gravestones reflect the ongoing devotion and sorrow of those left behind.

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (part 5: More Than Human)

Some of the gravestones at the Hartsdale Canine Cemetery use the rhetoric of surrogacy, identifying the non-human animal as, essentially, as good as a human relative—and in some cases, perhaps superior.

Next to Larry, the "grandson," lays Luke, the "son."

"Our Little Man."

In case there was any doubt, yes, I did love my cats more than I loved you.

Unabashedly claiming interspecies family.

This one is fascinating: Mickey is not a dog; he is merely a boy in dog-face. I hope someone runs across my blog and is inspired to write a whole article about this.

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (part 4: Almost Human)

Stanley Brandes has written about American pet cemetery gravestones, tracking how they evidence the increasing humanization (my word, not his) of pet animals. As they increasingly were given human names and human religious and ethnic affiliations, their gravestones also reflected the pet's adoption of their human family's identity. 

I love this: pets so beloved, they emigrated with their humans. 

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (part 3: Understated, But Effective)

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (part 2: Lives Lived Together)

As someone who has loved and lost non-human companions, I responded readily to the outpouring of interspecies devotion. 

1. You made me me.

2. Some, like this one, vividly record the sheer pain of parting.

3. Tissues in hand, I wandered over gravestones that bore witness to interspecies lives lived together.

4. Because humans can really suck as friends.

5. Bianca's only flaw.

6. My first friend.

7. I would like to volunteer my tears in sympathy.

8. Dear Mom, I miss you.

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Hartsdale Pet Cemetery Tour (part 1 of many)

As part of my research for a book chapter in Margo DeMello’s upcoming collection, Mourning Animals (Michigan State University Press), last weekend I caught part of a special tour of the Hartsdale Canine Cemetery. Established circa 1896, the cemetery--a stone's throw from New York City--was the first non-human animal cemetery in the U.S.

Previous to that, people with land would create their own private place and urban dwellers would be forced to leave the remains along with other trash. (Keeping in mind that the streets of, say, New York, were distinctly more foul at the time, this is and isn't as weird as it sounds.) Hilda Kean has researched some other pet cemeteries that cropped up in the nineteenth century--in London and Paris, for example. As pets became closer companions of humans, it followed that disposing of their remains via dumpster would shock sensibilities and that alternatives would be explored.

  Few headstones from the nineteenth century remain in the Hartsdale Canine Cemetery. This is believed to be the oldest (1898), inscribed with only the owner’s last name:

I'll be posting the (many, many) pictures in parts, and conclude this first posting with some of the more uniquely shaped memorials:

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Breed Changes

Illustrations from "A Chapter on Dogs," from Ballou's Dollar Monthly, a Boston publication dated August 1860, courtesy of Googlebooks.

King Charles Spaniels 

Pomeranian Dog 

(larger in frame than your average Pomeranian today)

Spaniel

Danish Dog

Poodle

(not looking very much like poodles today)

Maltese Dog

A bit bigger, perhaps, than today's common specimen. At this time, a Maltese was rather rare and very expensive. At one point, they were thought to be extinct.

This is Landseer's "The Last of His Tribe" (1830), so named because of the general apprehension that the breed was extinct.

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On the Pit Bull as "Nanny Dog"

Recently, a link to a 2010 blog post claiming to debunk the myth of the “nanny dog” has been recirculating through the web. According to “The TRUTH About Pit Bulls” (by “CKing”) the “nanny dog” myth lulls dog owners into a false sense of security, exposing their children to dangerous pit bulls. Comments to the post quickly devolved into heated debate, with ample name-calling on both sides.

Though I find declarations on a whole breed to be highly specious, my purpose presently is not to defend pit bulls, so I’m going to step around the sticky question of which nineteenth-century breed(s) might or might not be considered to be the genetic counterparts to today’s pit bull. I’m more interested in CKing’s primary argument: the history of the idea of the pit bull as “nanny dog.” According to CKing, the epitaph was a 1970s fabrication by one avid "pit nutter," with no foundation in fact.  

But CKing’s blog post focuses more on the actual phrase “nanny dog” than on clarifying how the pit bull was regarded in the nineteenth century. Citing two nineteenth-century texts, he correctly establishes that the pit bull was considered to be an excellent fighter. There is no doubt that the bull terrier, like the bull dog, were purposefully bred for fighting for the amusement of men. The author finds it immediately “inexplicabl[e]” that a dog breed renowned for its fighting abilities would also be considered “the supposed dog of choice” to babysit children. Yet this does not seem to be paradoxical on its face: a courageous fighter would logically serve as an excellent guard.

In fact, CKing misrepresents at least the first of his two citations. When he refers to J.G. Wood’s “account of a Bull Terrier’s attack on a rhinoceros by a dog” called Venus, CKing makes it sound as if a random dog on a random day found a random rhinoceros to maul. But if we would just read a bit above and below the cherry-picked quote, we would see that Wood’s account is clearly meant to showcase the bull terrier’s courage and sagacity.

“[The rhino] had still strength enough to make a dash at them; and would probably have laid hold of some of them, had not a small bitch (half Terrier and half bull-dog, called Venus, in derision of her ugliness) caught the enraged animal by the lower lip, where she stuck with such tenacity that the rhinoceros, with all his fury, was unable to shake her off. She only relinquished her hold when her huge antagonist was fairly laid prostate by a ball” (Wood 311). 

So a band of white imperialists touring southwestern Africa faced off with a rhinoceros. It’s not clear who started the fight—the dog or the rhino—but Wood obviously approves of how the fight ended: the dog had saved the men, giving them the opportunity to shoot their common enemy. Instead of providing a fair summary of the account, however, CKing hones in only on the parenthetical reference to Miss Venus’ ugliness—an ugliness that I would argue served as a badge of honor for the dogs preferred by sporting men. The pit bull, Wood praises, “dashes with brilliant audacity at any foe which his master may indicate to him, or which he thinks he ought to attack without orders” (311).

My brief exploration suggests that, if anything, the nineteenth century's views on pit bulls were, like today, fairly mixed. An 1889 piece in The Cultivator & Country Gentleman records that, at that time, the 'true' nature of the bull terrier was in question because of its fighting capabilities (Beale 604). On one hand, we have William Youatt, an English authority on the dog, testifying before the House of Commons in 1836 that the bull terrier "will bite every thing":

On the other hand, we have an American authority, George O. Shields, explicitly describing the bull terrier as "kind and affectionate to children" and the best choice of house dog.

And a March 1891 issue of Babyhood Magazine ("Dogs for Babies' Playmates," p.121), an American publication, also recommends the bull terrier for children:

Contrary to CKing's assessment, nineteenth-century views on the bull terrier far from settled, and on the whole, rather more positive as they had more use for fighting dogs.

Today, the controversy is only more heated, what with breed-specific legislation cropping up all over the country with more approbation than gun control legislation.    

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Colonialism and the Animal Welfare Movement

A fantastic exhibit on the intersection of the animal welfare movement and colonialism: a short book addressed "to the children of Calcutta" to convince young people to adopt the cause.

The book begins by introducing a "band of valiant gentlemen"--knights--who "roved about different countries seeking to do deeds of great bravery," painting imperialist exploration as a Christian crusade of Arthurean proportions. First, the author celebrates their victory against the "cruel giants" of slavery, successfully freeing the "poor captives"(.... thank you?!) He seamlessly changes the subject to another set of cruel giants and victims. But he does not divulge the fact that he is speaking of non-human animal victims until a few pages of emotional description, after stirring up heroic sentiment.     Turning to shaming tactics (one of the greatest weapons of the animal welfare movement), the author describes how the "great army to fight against cruelty" in England, Scotland, and Ireland had inspired "nearly all the other countries in the world" do do the same....  ".... but there is one country--one whole quarter of the globe I said nothing about--that is, ASIA. This you all know is where we are. Now, as Asia is bigger than Europe, and Europe has more than one hundred and forty "Societies," how many do you think Asia ought to have?--Asia has only one.... "

"Perhaps you ask why doesn't the great "Royal Society" in London (which we call our Parent Society) send some of its officers out here. Oh! they could not afford that! They have enough fighting to do there, and every country must find its own army. They did all they could for us, as good parents always do. They showed us how to begin, and what to do, and gave us their Law, and told us all they had done, and now they expect us to do our best and fight for ourselves." 

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When did we start calling hydrophobia "rabies"?

This was this morning's mystery. Not for any particular work, mind you, but I was re-reading my Dracula chapter, and I remembered how interesting it had been for me to learn that rabies used to be called "hydrophobia." When did the transition happen?

Some interesting observations:

Hydrophobia seemed like a suitable name for some time. In many cases, apparently, its victims reportedly avoided water. Even as cases were reported where this was not the case--even that a patient instead gorged himself on water--the name stuck around. There was quite a bit of overlap--decades during which people wrote both "rabies" and "hydrophobia." I imagine that with medical terms in particular there's a lot of "rabies, formerly known as hydrophobia," &c. &c. 

The use of "hydrophobia" persisted even long after it was fairly settled that rabies did not necessarily manifest as a fear of drinking, or being near to, or getting into, water. Even for decades after Louis Pasteur's treatment was developed and accepted (it took a while). The significant drop, after the 1920s, is likely due to the fact that the last recorded case in the U.K. was in 1922 (and largely controlled by the 1890s due to muzzling orders). 

At its late stages, it seems that rabies is quite unbearable, and one of the ways in which late-stage rabies was handled was, essentially, euthanasia. (The victim would be smothered under a mattress.) There is still no cure as such, but our modern-day treatment (prevention via practices of animal control and the prophylaxis first developed by Pasteur) is effective enough, and we no longer worry about rabies during the "dog days" of summer.  

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Creating Carnivores and Cannibals: Regulating the Traffic in Meat

My paper has been accepted for ACLA's 2014 annual meeting for a seminar with Kari Weil! I had the great fortune to meet her during the ASI-WAS Human-Animal Studies Fellowship and really look forward to regrouping with fellow HAS folks. It has been too long!

My contribution to the seminar is on meat-based diets. We seem to always be talking about how much meat we should eat or not eat. I want to look beyond the human diet. 

In the streets of nineteenth-century London and the U.S., the “dog’s-meat man” would hawk horseflesh for the dogs that were being refashioned into beloved companions. For dogs, this was a step up the food ladder: accorded the privilege of eating the meat of other animals, dogs were nudged closer to humanity. In turn, this was a step down for horses, who without human intervention were not likely to fall prey to dogs.While humans eschewed eating the carcasses of “knackered” cab horses—and the “dog’s-meat man” was the butt of derisive jokes—they approved the carnivorous extension of the diets of their new animal friends.

Humans have classified other animals according to the uses they serve—as Hal Herzog puts it, “some we love, some we hate, some we eat.” But how else have we classified animalkind?

My paper explores the ways in which we have not only regulated what we can love/hate/eat, we have also regulated what, when, and how much other animals can love/hate/eat. In the nineteenth century, we granted more access to meat to those animals that we loved. We force-fed animals before slaughter. We developed almanacs and handbooks decreeing “optimal” animal diets in detail. We marked the failure to eat certain animals (e.g., cows) or the choice to eat others (e.g., dogs) as contraventions of nature. 

I propose looking at these practices to map the nineteenth-century’s complex traffic in meat, uncovering the species, gender, class, and race politics of human and non-human meat-eating. By exploring the nineteenth-century construction of this food chain in literature, animal care manuals, farming journals, and popular periodicals, I also hope to shed light on how over the last 200 years we have become a society that feeds cows to cows, dogs to dogs.